Tonight is July 25, 2016 our regular Monday night class. Hello to all of you and hello to those who are listening by way of the Internet.

We are going to talk about a real basic subject, which is dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction, we want to get to the root of this particular topic. We are an uneasy lot, us human beings. Since we've come to this Earth, we've been constantly striving to stay alive. We struggled with old-age sickness, and death, which has plagued us all the way through our existence. Darwin was right when he talked about the origin of the species and the fundamental goals that are built-in to each species, in the manner in which we try to stay alive. From the very beginning of the human existence, we were trying to find a meal. You know in the very early days, there was no book that said what you could eat and what you couldn’t eat so humans, by trial and error, ate anything they could possibly do. It’s a funny thing because if you go around the world, you will find that humans eat anything they could possibly put in their mouth. So we haven't really changed that much in terms of the way we are.

But we have to look at this kind of an origin of the humankind so that we can begin to see what dissatisfaction is and what satisfaction is. In the beginning, I think we are very satisfied if we had found a cave, and we had some fire, and something to eat. After a while, it wasn't enough to have a cave. We had to put things in it. We had to have this bigger fire and we have to have somebody to share that cave with, and we have to have better things to eat. Not only that, we have to have food stored up for the next day so that we’re guaranteed at least two to three days of food so that we’re guaranteed to stay alive that long. It is in this way that we come into this world wanting and craving.

In the beginning, if you look at man and you saw how man was, we were pretty much roamers and gatherers of whatever we can gather, and we probably formed the family before we formed a particular individual male-female units somewhere along the line because man was there and he formed a bond with a woman. Probably in the beginning, it was the biggest man [kind of like in the primates], was the one that had all of the women. To the ones that were smaller, well there was dissatisfaction there. That was just the way things were but not everybody was satisfied.

As we evolved, and I when I use the definition of evolution, it doesn't necessarily mean evolution was something that was a good thing. It maybe means progress but it doesn’t mean that we as a species, evolve to a higher state that what we were. If you look at the beginning, we threw rocks at each other. And later on, we hit each other with clubs, and spears, arrows, muskets, cannons, and rockets. We may go full circle - back to throwing rocks again. We’re here and we became better at killing each other. No satisfaction there.

As we stayed on Earth, we pretty much became [let’s say] the King of the Jungle, but in this way we've taken to continuous fighting and this idea of primacy is built-in to our genes: “this is my life, my home, my wife, my husband, my children, my job.” We continue seeking stability and comfort in our station in life, in our family, our friends, our money, our homes, and we’ve never really reached a point of contentment or satisfaction, never saying “this is it!” Why is that? It’s because things are constantly changing: people change, work changes, health changes. We’re once young and you will be old in a blink of an eye (Not tomorrow so don’t worry), sickness and death. And still we seek validation from the phenomena that we encounter; whether it's a new car, or sitting in front of the TV eating out of a half-gallon of ice cream late at night. Impermanence is always present: always robbing us of our tranquility, taking this moment away, taking away as we begin to think of the past, when we think of what might happen in the future, we’re not in the present moment, we’re not resting. In the illusion of the past or the future, fear and craving drive us. Sometimes we even crave fear. If you don't believe me, see why Walking Dead is so popular. We crave to be scared.

A long time ago, there was a commercial on TV and it was about three or four guys in a lodge and they were watching the river down below. It was going to be sunset and they have their feet up on the railing and they were kicking back with a beer in their hands. And they said, “It doesn't get much better than this.” And that really struck me thinking “Is that it? Is this our message?” It bothered me because I thought, first of, these are actors and probably who knows if they will get another acting job. Yes?

Student: I think it was the opposite… (Barely audible…)

Gilbert: I think that's probably why you should keep coming to the classes. The thing is that when we look at things in this way, the problem with it, and I do understand what you're saying, but the problem with that is, if it was that way, yes. But the thing is that if we live our life for those moments, how few and far between you have those moments, because Monday comes up. And come Monday, they’ve got go back to their office and deal with all of things that are there. So if we're looking for the phenomenal aspects to say “This is it, I've gotten it!” Like in your life, have you ever gotten to that point where you go “I've got it?” No? I’ve known you for years now and you haven't got it? I mean, maybe some people get it and the thing is that it's not from the phenomena. It's not from that moment of the beautiful sunset. It doesn’t mean, and you're right, it doesn't mean that one can’t enjoy it. Quite so, quite so that one can enjoy it but if we define our life in that moment when you're sitting there with a cold beer in your hand and you’re thinking that this is it, it really causes us dissatisfaction when Monday comes and we’re sitting at a desk, or wherever we’re at. We could be digging ditches or we could be doing whatever else, and it's not there anymore. And so we are dissatisfied looking for that moment again.

So we can't really define ourselves within this phenomenal basis and we cannot satiate ourselves with phenomena because the craving continues, always continuing. We see that and probably the first step in Chan is understanding out that you crave, that there's suffering that's there. And when you see that and you understand “okay, this is the way it is,” it helps us understand and be able to come to a reckoning (and there's a positive and to this so it’s not all negative tonight. I'm not gloom and doom completely tonight).

As Buddhists, we see the world differently; we see the impermanence. Master Sheng Yen used to always say that “nature testifies to us all the time. Listen and you’ll hear it.” You look at the clouds, you listen to the breezy, and you see things. He’s always saying “Impermanence, impermanence, impermanence;” it's all around you and you see this impermanence. And it helps you understand. It helps to accept the human condition.

We see from ignorance, cause the self to suffer and this suffering produces dissatisfaction - of clinging to likes and dislikes. On the contrary, Chan says in the one Chan poem, “The Supreme Way is not difficult as long as one doesn't pick and choose. If you pick and choose, you’re off by a thousand miles.” In the present moment, not picking and choosing, wisdom arises naturally. This is the most difficult part - is to not pick and choose. We still can function, we can still have fun. If you have that inclination to open a beer, but you don't need to have the second, third, fourth, fifth beer or six pack of beer. It doesn't have to be that way. You cannot find satisfaction in the bottle, a pill, or cigarette, whatever else that one is seeking it from. It cannot be had in this way.

But every moment can be that moment. It doesn't have to be the moment where somebody is sitting there at sunset with a beer in their hand with their friends in the beautiful setting. Every moment we can find peace, but we have to see things from the wisdom viewpoint, not from the viewpoint of a human being. We understand the human condition. If we see the things arising naturally, we see that things are in motion. The karmic forces that surround you now, even the young ones here, those karmic forces have been set into motion from the things that you've done from before. So when we see those karmic forces, then you appreciate how much energy was put into putting those things into motion, and for you to try to stop those karmic forces right now it's not realistic. It would be like you trying to stop a bus and that's in neutral going downhill. Have you ever tried to stop a car that's in neutral by yourself? What happened? You can't do it. It keeps going because there’s too much force there. You can't do that. It just keeps going until it runs into a tree, or a curb, or an incline, and it slowly dissipates its speed.

This is same way with the way when we practice. As we begin the practice, the karmic forces begin to lose their hold on us. We cannot have them immediately stop. Doing this and trying to do so would be foolishness. We still incur the karma from before. The only difference is that we’re not creating this strong karmic negative forces around us for the future. Little by little, things do change and we have to understand that in terms of the way that we look at things. And if we do it in this way, we find that it will work properly for us because it's exactly how things work. The nature of things is that we are patient to let the karma run its course. We can do things to mitigate that karma - transferring merit and doing things which will mitigate the karma that we have. So we don't have to sit there and wait for it to hit us. We can do things that will help us with it, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to inoculate us from any adversity in life. Those things come with the human condition.

Once, I remember and I told this story before, that I saw Master Sheng Yen in the hallway before a retreat and I said, “Shifu, I understand this. This is like you're riding a bike and when you begin to practice, there's a stick that somebody sticks into the spokes and it stops the bike from rolling and it falls over.”

He said “yeah that's way it is.”

And as I was walking away, he said, “But remember, it only stops for you.”

That was a very important thing that he was saying because he was saying “we don't practice for ourselves. We practice so that we can help other people slow the momentum of their karmic forces and to take away the ignorance of others.” This is the expression of compassion that arises out of wisdom. We cannot gain satisfaction trying to win this human game. We still die, and maybe if we're good enough, popular enough, or famous enough, they will erect a statue to us that some pigeon sits on and poops on. Maybe we need to give money to our family or that charity (that’s where the statue comes in).

Is it winning? Not really! The interesting thing and this is one that changes the game completely is in the Diamond Sutra. In the Diamond Sutra, there is an exchange between Subhuti and the Buddha. In the Diamond Sutra, it says that the Buddha was speaking to Subhutti and he says, “What do you think Subhuti, suppose all of the sands in the Ganges River are Ganges Rivers and all those sands… (Think about this, you have the Ganges River and all of those sands in there are Ganges Rivers in and of themselves…), all that collective sands were treasure chest that one would give to the poor. Would there be merit in that?”

And Subhuti said, “Yes! There would be great merit, great merit for that to give to the poor.”

But the Buddha said, “Not as much as reciting four lines of the Sutra to someone.”

So all of the possible wealth, if you had Bill Gates’ fortune, and you multiplied it by a million squared, and gave a dollar for all those multiplied, it would still not be the same as reciting four lines of the Sutra. Why is that? You just received an incredible wealth right now, far beyond winning the lottery a million times over. What is it that makes that statement so powerful? What is it in the Diamond Sutra?

Student: Spiritual truth… (Barely audible…)

Gilbert: The spiritual truth, what is the truth in the Sutra? You really can't put it into words and actually at the end of the Diamond Sutra, it said something along these lines, that “All that you should think of this fleeting world: a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a dewdrop on a leaf, a phantasm, an illusion, a dream.” And it talks about what I'm talking about now, which is just phenomenally, everything is an illusion. It's an illusion and when we understand that, we understand where is this illusion occurring? Guys have any idea? Where does these illusions appear?

Student: In mind.

Gilbert: Yes, look at this. Good job! In mind itself. Our mind is an illusion, but mind is what all the illusions are projected on. The mind that you use and the mind that I use, is the same mind. There's no is possession to that mind. It is just mind, and everything appears within it in accordance with causes and conditions.

So in our practice, we understand that everything appears for a reason. There's nothing that just happens to happen. So if you were to walk outside (I’ll say something positive instead of negative) and somebody was to hand you $1000, you would understand that was given to you for a reason. Well, it could've been that the person was very grateful about things, or he could've held up that the liquor store down the street and he wanted you to hold the bag because the police are after them. There are all sorts of different reasons why, but everything happens for a reason. It's not by accident in how we do things.

It is in that we understand that the things that are rising in the human condition and in all sentient beings is due to Paticcasamuppada – causes and conditions never fail – this Law of Dependent Origination is incredibly powerful. When we understand that and we understand how things work, there is a satisfaction that arises from that. The satisfaction is from the wisdom that enables us to deal with those things and says all these things are part of the… whether we have something or we don't have something, the greed, hatred, or desires, they are all arising as an illusion from this human condition. When we understand that, we see the things and it helps us explain what is appearing before our eyes.

And when it helps us explain what’s appearing before our eyes, what it does is that enables us to understand the world and understand that this game is not won by trying to acquire the most of anything: whether it’s the most fame, or the most money, or the most women, or the most men, or whatever. It is done by understanding what is appearing before your eyes in this moment, and being content with what's there, and being content in understanding and being mindful about not creating negative karma.

It's very very difficult because one is mindful of karma as we go along in terms of things. It's not so easy. It's not something that is A or B. It could be A or B, or A, and B, and C, or none of the above. You have to use your wisdom to pick from those choices and to be dealing with that, and accepting that, and accepting that based on your own limitations, your own limitations of your wisdom at that time. But nevertheless, you're making choices out of wisdom. The most important step in utilizing wisdom is knowing that you have a choice - that moment to moment, you have a choice to do something.

So you see a person and they were in line and they dig in their pockets and handed the teller some money, and a hundred dollar bill falls on the ground. Now you have a choice. Do you pick up that hundred dollar bill and put it in your pocket, or do you give it to the person? That's a pretty easy one for most people, but nevertheless there's a choice there. So there are different things that can come up in terms of this but you try to make your best choice. Those are easy ones but sometimes they are not so easy in terms of what you do. You try your best to come up with the best conduct through body, speech and mind. You’re aware what is coming into mind. You’re aware of what you're saying. You’re aware of what you're doing. These things are very important but there's something very powerful in that choice. And it's wisdom. Moment-to-moment making that choice. Moment-to-moment resting in the present moment, understanding whatever is set into motion, karmically you're dealing with it. It may be good, it may be bad but you're dealing with it and you don't have fear. You know that things can happen to you, they can have to other people, whatever is there. You’re not there like somebody with the Sword of Damocleshanging over their heads waiting to fall on them.

We also understand that that sword is there with the idea that we have a finite amount of breaths and we do not know how many breaths we’re going to take in this lifetime. We can have a lot of them or very few of them. We don't know when we will take that last breath. So the idea is that we want to bring to a halt this karmic force. We bring it to a halt by not contributing to it in the present - by making decisions that will help us to alleviate the forces that are moving, not only for us but collectively as a group. Collectively as this group here, collectively as whoever you work with, your family, your community, your city, your country, and we do the things that are necessary to do this and to the world as a whole. And we begin to understand this way that this is where the satisfaction comes from. That satisfaction comes from within, from us not craving, not holding on to, not desire, not hating, not picking and choosing.

Does that mean that we are zombie-like? No! It’s quite to the contrary because people who were following their habitual tendencies are like zombies. They’re pre-programmed. If you put somebody that is impatient in a long line, what you think will happen to him? He's going to get more impatient and angry. He is pre-programmed to be that way. Rather then you see, this is just the way it is and soon I will be at the front of the line. So I would just be here and I will make use of my time. Maybe I’ll do recitation, maybe I’ll rest, maybe I’ll talk to people, or maybe I‘ll just keep moving my foot little by little like a walking meditation. So we do things in this way. And when we go to Disneyland (that’s pretty much what we practice anyway), you put 1 foot in front of the other and you move about 10 feet every half-hour and then eventually you get that ride for 2 minutes and you do it again. So you begin to relax and you begin to take in how the world is.

You are processing much faster because you're not picking and choosing, so there's a much more quicker processing of information, which enables you to see the world at a slower pace. The world catches up to you rather than you constantly thinking like you haven’t caught up with the world. When we look at this, what happens is that this wisdom that we begin to work with… But let me stop for a moment and ask “what is wisdom?” Anybody want to give a definition of wisdom?

Student: Seeing the world as it is.

Gilbert: Seeing the world as it is? That is probably a pretty good definition of wisdom - seeing the world as it is from the viewpoint of no-self. This is where we would reach to Transcendental Wisdom, where one can see the world as it is. We still have self but when we reach the point of an unselfish viewpoint of the world as it is, essentially what we’re doing is looking at the world and fathoming what is taking place moment to moment. Little by little, we begin to see the intricate weave of karmic forces around us - collectively and individually, and we also see the potentiality of things that are going to happen.

Our idea of no-self is one saying that “if there's a benefit here, it is through compassion of understanding that others do not see the world in this way.” And when they don't see the world in this way, they seek satisfaction from a bottle, a pill, a needle, from other people, from adoration of other people. But they're really not at peace, and this can be taken away from them very very quickly.

So let’s say you took somebody who likes a lot of attention and you put them in a room like this and say “stay here all day!” His head would blow up because he could not take that. He could not take that because there is no adoration there. There's nobody that’s saying “yes” to him. There's nobody there to listen to him. He has to listen to himself.

Student: (It could be him or her…)

Gilbert: Either way. I will not play the political game too much but I'm just using these kinds of examples here. It can be either one - either a crazy elephant or donkey. So in terms of this, the ideas is we use wisdom in everything we see.

For the past month, I've been really getting on this and trying to give you an experience of Chan in your everyday life. We’ve talked about how to meditate, we’ve talked about things, we’ve talked about mind, but I've really kind of gone into this [lets go to] “Chan 101” and begin to really look at it from the ground floor, look at it from a way that you begin to see yourself in a situation, and then you begin to disassociate yourself from your “self” - you pull away from it a little bit. It doesn't mean that you withdraw from the situation but you withdraw from the environment in a habitual manner, where before you were in the environment and everything was happening in accordance with your habit energy.

As you pullback, it gives you a chance to be able to have that 3-second delay to be able to stop things from coming into mind, from saying things or doing things that you’ll regret, and that helps you. After a while, you have more and more time to be able to make adjustments on the fly. And you catch yourself getting impatient, getting angry, discriminating, all sorts of things. You’ll be very surprised how much discrimination you have in your mind. In fact, if you do it right you’ll be shocked. You will be shocked and you be shamed by what goes through your mind. I don't care which one of us here I'm talking about [including myself], this is what's going to happen, is we’re going to look at things from this viewpoint of the self and seeing how the self looks at it and then say “What if this world, everybody could hear everybody else's thoughts?” I think there was a movie like that, The Liar, where the guy was lying all the time and then he had to tell the truth.

The idea is that we begin to do that with our “self,” expose our “self.” And by exposing it, then we begin to understand, we see how it functions, we see that it arises in conjunction with other mental associates that will bring it forth. It could be that “I hate lies, or I hate pickles, or I hate this type of ethnic group.” It could be all sorts of different things that come up and you begin to see that. You begin to see how condition you are, how condition the media makes you and the people around you, and how you condition the people around you, which is where the shame comes in.

So you see how that works and you see the opposite - the positive side that if you do things in the right way, if you do things in a positive way, you can change the things around you and you can create that Pure Land on Earth just simply by changing. You would be very surprised how powerful that is because what you're doing is you’re practicing that that too becomes the big bus with a great momentum behind it. But it's a very positive bus, a very positive momentum. It doesn’t have to be a negative one and it draws others to push that bus too.

If you work this way, you find that your life will be easier, the people around you will have a better life as well, and you will not be so dissatisfied with your life. Too many of us, we have so much dissatisfaction in our life, unhappy. But we understand, this is self too; a very ugly part of our self. We have to just throw it out; just throw it out! You don't need it! Just get rid of it! Get rid of it and you replace it with wisdom. Not a bad deal! It doesn't mean that from then on you are immortal, or that nothing bad is going to happen to you. Yeah, a lot of stuff is going to happen to you. The only difference is that you are going to be able to deal with it and you’re going to be able to deal with it in a very noble, positive way. Okay, any questions?